


Sanctum

by Merit



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Dark, F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Unconsensual Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-16 18:11:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13641717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/pseuds/Merit
Summary: The figures in the stained glass leaned closer, swords and spears rattling, blood falling onto marble.





	Sanctum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TadpoleGlee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TadpoleGlee/gifts).



In the holiest of temples, white columns and rays of sun streaming through impossibly tall windows, Mirko Halfwing knelt in front of the altar and prayed.

But no words escaped his lips. Whispers stirred at the edges of his hearing. In the stained glass, saints and martyrs turned their fierce glares upon him, swords and spears rattling. Blood ran from the tip of  a blade, falling over him, staining his raiment.

His face was wet, and he smelled blood, but when he wiped at his face there was only tears.

“Your holiness?”

Mirko started at the sound, turning quickly to face the intruder. It was two soldier-priests, clad in ceremonial white and gold, between them they held a woman. She was clad in the colors of Sintar, crude browns and blues. She glared at him, one eye swollen shut, bruises and cuts littered her exposed skin, blood staining her clothes. He walked over, his cloak dragging on the marble floor, til he loomed over her. Still she glared and when she gathered herself to spit at him, he froze the muscles in her mouth, casting a holy incantation. She stilled, her one open eye revealed a glimmer of fear, before the surly defiance settled like a mantle over her shoulders again.

“Your holiness,” said the soldier on the right, the stars on his shoulders indicating his superior status, the band around his upper arm revealed he had three children, that he was from the Northern Moors, that his wife had died in last winter’s famine. And both the soldiers bowed, forcing the woman into an uncomfortable looking sprawl. She didn’t lower her head. “I am Sir Thom of the Fallow Seas and this is my page, Armin. The Sintar spy was captured along the Eastern Ridge. Cardinal Arlo was unable to extract any useful information.”

“Cardinal Arlo must be disappointed,” Mirko said and the page-woman on the left winced. Armin covered the motion with another short bow. Cardinal Arlo was legendary in her rages. It was a wonder the Sintar spy was still alive and not an elaborate blood stain in Arlo’s chambers.

“Cardinal Arlo believed you may be able to divine more,” Sir Thom continued, eyes staring past Mirko’s shoulder. 

“Ah yes,” Mirko said, staring down at the spy. “And what did Cardinal Arlo discover?”

The soldiers stirred on their feet.

“Nothing,” the spy said, and Mirko did not let his face move, did not stir. The holy incantation should have kept her mouth frozen for a day or so. Unless he broke it. And he had not deliberately broken it. Behind the soldiers and the spy, Saint Argun glared at him, blood falling steadily from her sword onto the pristine marble, mouth open in a wordless scream. Argun had slaughtered a dozen enemy spear soldiers, before she had fallen, screaming her devotion. They had cut out her tongue and she had died three days after, choking on her own blood.  “Arlo the Butcher couldn’t extract anything from me!” And she grinned, blood on her teeth, her breathing manic.

“I see,” Mirko said, stepping back. “Leave her in her chains. I will see what I can discover,” he said, he turned, waving a dismissal at the soldiers. There was a pause, both clearly reluctant to leave him with the spy. But then there was a clunk of chains, the spy being dropped into a heap, the steady footsteps as they departed. When the soldiers had finally left, closing the ten man high doors behind them, Mirko circled the woman.

She sat up slowly. The chains were Dwarven made, a relic from a time when his people had a treaty with the Dwarves and it hadn’t been burned and salted and destroyed. Over a hundred years old they may be, but the chains still gleamed like new. She tossed her short hair, black like many Sintar.

“I will not speak,” she said. “I will not break any secrets.”

“My methods are different from Cardinal Arlo’s,” Mirko said, pausing at the woman’s left, just enough out of her sight so she had to twist and strain, muscles no doubt aching, to meet his gaze. “It is not knives and tools you have to fear from me.”

“No,” the woman said bitterly, looking past his shoulder. “Arlo the Butcher, Mirko the Seer. We have names for you, too.”

“Do you?” he asked. It had been years since he had been to the front. Years since he had fought in muddy fields, turned to slush by blood and water incantations, scorched by fire spells. Before -

She opened her mouth again, before turning her head, tilting her head up. She remained stubbornly quiet. The light from the windows hit her face, revealing sharp planes, bony collar bones, half skeleton. Sintar, too, had been hardened by last winter’s famine. Behind her the saints and martyrs, illuminated red by the afternoon sun, leaned closer, their swords and spears outstretched. She was surrounded, the jagged shadows of their weapons leaving her encircled.

“This is the holiest place in the world,” he said, not looking to see if his face was covered with tears or blood. He turned to face her, his cloak moving through the shadow weapons, the saints and martyrs retreating to glass, turning their twisted gaze on him. 

“It is wrong,” she said, eyes darting around. “Can you not feel it?”

He tasted blood on his tongue.

“I am Mirko Halfwing,” and he spread his arms, what was left of his wing rising, several feathers falling, the edges scarlet. Blood soaked his cloak, burning when it hit his skin.

“You’re wrong, too,” she whispered, looking over his shoulder, horror on her face. Something stirred on the altar. He did not look. He did not need to.

His god rested there.

The spy’s breathing quickened. She licked her bloody lips, the blood falling free, staining her Sintar colors. When the blood hit the marble floors, it split the marble, the sound echoing throughout the chamber like a bright cymbal. He recoiled, horror on his face.

Saint Merle, the skulls of her traitor sons wrapped like a shawl around the shoulders, descended from the glass. She roared silently, teeth razor sharp, the rope she had used to strangle her sons hanging like a snake from her long, white fingers. Her rope lashed out at the spy, passing through her. Saint Merle reared back, a fiercely angry expression on her face, set in stone as she returned to the glass.

“They all rest here,” he said, looking around at the jagged faces of the saints and martyrs, “When they die,” he inclined his head in the direction of the altar, half bow, “it is willed to be so.”

The spy’s breathing had quickened.

“I was meant to die on the field, three score years ago,” Mirko said, his wing dropping, dragging on the earth, smearing blood, red blood, black blood. “I am already half there,” he said, falling to his knees, reverential. 

The hall was full. The hall had always been full. When new saints and martyrs were formed, in blood and tragedy, the room shifted and changed. The altar stretched impossibly behind him, the door a mere smudge in the distance.

His wing was hit by the sun, even brighter still because of the dark void that surrounded it. The void where his body was meant to be embalmed in glass.

“Then you can still leave,” the spy said simply. He inhaled sharply, staring down at her. Behind them, the body on the altar stirred.

She smiled, bright and bold, despite the carmine blood and dusk deep bruises.

“If you run fast enough,” she said, rising to her feet, graceful even with the shackles around her wrists, ankles and neck. The incantation was almost ripped out of him, leaving his mouth raw, willing the chains to fall to the ground, ash in his mouth.

“I can still fly,” he breathed. And she held out her hand. He reached for her.

A terrible wail came from the altar.

They started moving as soon as their fingertips touched.


End file.
